Chapter Fourteen Hell Is Having to Make Small Talk
Chapter Fourteen
Hell Is Having to Make Small Talk
Leah is standing on a ladder with a Stanley cup full of water that she’s slowly pouring onto the floor a few drips at a time. The cameraman focuses on me and Chase as we place a bucket under the “leak.” Lex has a boom mic lowered close to us, presumably to catch the sound of falling water.
Chase asks, “Hey, are you okay after the fireworks? I saw you go down, and I got worried.”
“Oh, yeah,” I say, shoving another bucket under the fake dripping water for lack of anything better to do. “Daniel pushed me out of the way. You don’t have to worry.”
“I’m glad he was there,” he says. Then, after a beat, “I hope you know you’ll always be important to me, Alice.”
“You’ll always be important to me too,” I say, but even as I say it, I can see how in my head I’ve already started to reconfigure our relationship.
The grief and anger I felt when I saw Chase tangled up with Selena is still inside me, but after the talk I had with Chase, it feels muted, almost distant. Here on the island, every day feels like a week because of how much is happening and how much I’m experiencing. Plus I’ve been so busy focusing on selling this relationship with Daniel that I haven’t really had time to think about it all.
Or maybe it’s the sleep deprivation.
I’m spared from having to say more when Dominic and Zya burst into the room, covered in mud.
Leah takes this as a cue to change things up. “All right, let’s move over to the kitchen and show you all, I don’t know, checking the refrigerator? Locking the windows? Just look busy.”
We head into the kitchen, which is a complete mess thanks to our rushed efforts to make “emergency sandwiches.” The power in the villa flickers and then goes out, plunging us into darkness.
“Chase!” Selena comes racing in. She looks around, her eyes wild. “Chase, there you are. What’s going on? Why did the power go out?”
“Ran out of electricity?” Chase shrugs. Selena grips his arm, genuine terror on her face.
Daniel walks in, carrying a box of flashlights and candles. A few of the production assistants and crew members start lighting candles, and soon the room is awash in the warm glow of candlelight. I grab a flashlight and pass another one to Selena.
“Thank god,” she mutters, switching her flashlight on. “I know it’s stupid, but I really, really hate the dark.”
“Aw, babe,” Chase says, rubbing her shoulders. “You can rough it for a couple days, right? It’s like camping, but we’re indoors.”
Selena glares daggers at him. “I had to deal with enough of that shit when I was a kid. My dad didn’t pay the power bill half the time, and me and my sisters were always freezing our asses off in the dark. I’m not doing that again.”
“It’s okay, you don’t have to,” Daniel says calmly. “There’s a backup generator.”
“Really? How do you know?” Selena asks.
“Saw it earlier,” Daniel says. “I went outside to help the crew get the film equipment put away. Looks like it’s a big one—should be enough to get us through the storm. The lights should be back up soon.”
Sure enough, the lights blink on within minutes.
“Thank you, universe,” Selena cheers, and does a silly little jig around the room. I almost miss the cozy glow of the candles, but I’m relieved that we don’t have to ride out this storm without power. And even if Selena’s my competition, I wouldn’t wish the darkness on her.
—
Later in the day, the storm starts to slow. Through the window, I can see that instead of lashing winds and sheets of rain, there’s just a gentle fall of raindrops. Though the clouds are still a stormy gray, there are small pockets of blue sky where sunbeams stream down, like an idyllic and dynamic computer background.
“I think we’ve reached the eye of the storm,” I observe to Daniel when he comes back to our suite. “Why are you wet?”
“I set something up for us.” He shakes like a dog, sending droplets of water flying. He heads to the bathroom to towel off and change his bandages.
“Oh?” I was lying on the bed, musing about where I’d gone wrong in life, but at this, I prop myself up on my elbows to get a better look at Daniel. “And what exactly do you have planned?”
“ACBA,” he says.
“Huh?”
“Our accelerated chemistry building activity,” he says grandly. “Also known as a date. I’m taking you out, Slayer.”
My heart rate speeds up at that, traitorous thing. “And how are we supposed to go on a date during a storm? Didn’t the producers ask us to stay inside?”
“We’ll sneak out,” Daniel says, grinning. “Come on, this is the perfect chance. Aren’t you tired of being cooped up in here?”
I have to admit, I am getting pretty bored. With nothing to do, I’ve resorted to reorganizing everything in my luggage and folding all our bedsheets into neat squares.
“All right,” I say finally, and take his outstretched hand.
We put on our shoes, and he peeks outside the door, checking that the coast is clear. A small thrill shoots through me when he turns back to me, a mischievous smile on his face, and pulls me through the door-way with him.
“Come on,” he whispers, and soon we’re running through darkened corridors, my heart pounding as we slip past Seth and Anton talking in the kitchen, and creeping by the wing with the Video Village. I’m not sure where we’re going, but we seem to be taking a winding route toward the back of the villa.
“Are we going outside?” I ask. Too late, I realize I’ve forgotten to whisper. Daniel’s eyes widen comically as we dart around a corner, and he presses me into the wall. We hide in the shadows, waiting for two PAs to pass us.
When they’re gone, he says, “One, I won’t ruin the surprise, and two, Slayer, what part of ‘sneaking out’ makes you think you can talk at normal volume? You out of practice or what?”
Being out of practice implies I was ever in practice. Which I most definitely wasn’t.
While Cindy was learning the finer points of sneaking around to hang out with our friends in the 7-Eleven parking lot at night, I always begged off. Cindy didn’t need me there to have fun, and to be honest, I preferred spending the late hours with my mom. We’d watch the latest K-dramas, singing the theme songs together and drooling over the lead guys. I never felt the draw of escaping my family. Especially when we only had each other.
I shrug sheepishly and mime zipping my mouth. He squeezes my hand, keeping me close until we finally reach the back door.
The rain soaks us the minute we step outside, but it’s warm and I hardly mind. Daniel leads us confidently toward the jungle behind the villa and points out a curated path cut through the trees. Following it, we soon reach a tropical cabana. The roof is thatched with braided palm fronds, and bougainvillea vines lush with color cascade around the pillars. Despite our sketchy electrical situation, fairy lights twinkle up in the eaves, and at the center of it all is a picnic table.
“How did you find this place?” I marvel.
“I’ve been keeping an eye out for the right spot,” he says. “And then I added a little magic.”
When I spot the spread that’s been laid out, my jaw drops.
“No. How?” I turn to him.
On the table are two flickering candles and a pile of snacks. There’s Korean rice cakes, bars of strawberry Hi-Chew, packets of dried squid and seasoned nori, and—I can’t believe I’m really seeing this—haw flakes.
Daniel grins. “My luggage was mostly snacks from H Mart. Sorry it’s not a four-course meal, but this was the best I could do under the present circumstances.”
“How did you know?” I touch my finger to the haw flakes, which Daniel has made the centerpiece.
“That they’re your favorite? An informed guess.” He shrugs. “Do you know how many times you’d pop one of those in your mouth and then go on to completely destroy my argument in Mock Trial?”
“That doesn’t answer why you just so happened to have them in your luggage,” I point out.
“You made them look so good, I always wanted to ask for one, but I didn’t have the guts. So when I went shopping for snacks to bring on this trip, I snagged a pack.” He raises an eyebrow at me. “You know, objectively, they aren’t that great a snack. There are better ones.”
“They’re cheap and crumbly discs that I’m fond of for nostalgia reasons, all right? I won’t hear a word against them,” I say, wrinkling my nose at him. “Anyway, I didn’t make you buy them.”
“It’s cool. I’m glad I did.” Daniel lifts a hand to squeeze my shoulder. It feels so natural, so right, that I lean into it. “It’s nice to have something familiar when you’re away from home. Or at least that’s how I’ve always felt.”
He picks up a Tupperware with a red lid and opens it. Inside are what look like rice rolls coated with chopped nuts. Daniel offers me one. To my surprise, it’s delightfully warm.
“Oh, wow. What is it?” I ask.
“Tteok. I made it,” Daniel says. “My grandmother used to make this for me on competition days. She always put nuts in the ones she made for me.”
“Your grandmother?” I ask. I search my memory, and an older woman in colorful floral cardigans comes to mind. She came to some of Daniel’s competitions, but I don’t recall his parents ever being there—just her.
“Yeah, she taught me how to make these before she passed away last year.”
I never formally met Daniel’s grandmother, but learning that she’s gone is enough for me to feel a twinge of sympathy. “I’m sorry. Were you close?”
Daniel looks away for a moment. The fairy lights illuminate his face, enough so I can see him tearing up a bit. We sit in silence for a few minutes, and then he says, “My parents are both lawyers. They usually had to work late. My grandmother lived with us, so she was the one who’d pick me up from school, make dinner every night, and scold me when I did something dumb, like skin my knees skateboarding.”
“Did that happen a lot?”
He chuckles softly. “Constantly. I was always getting into scrapes, even when I was really little. But my grandmother was always there, ready with Band-Aids. And when I had nightmares, she was the one who chased them away with folktales and midnight snacks.”
It’s hard to imagine Daniel as a kid. Before this, I only knew the high school version of him, all angles and obnoxious confidence. It’s strange to think of him being young, vulnerable, the kind of kid who wakes up with nightmares.
I take a bite of my tteok, and it melts in my mouth while still staying crunchy. I close my eyes to savor it, and immediately want another one once I’m done. I hold my hand out, and Daniel obliges.
“You made this?” I ask.
Daniel looks embarrassed. “I made a big bag and froze some before we came here so I’d have some comfort food. It was a bit of a gamble that I’d be able to warm them up in the kitchen, but they turned out okay.”
“They’re good! Really good,” I say. “You must be a pro.”
“Nah, it’s just a hobby, and not one that I have much time for.”
I wave my piece of tteok at him. “Then how did you get into making these?”
“Hmm, let’s see.” Daniel tilts his head, considering. “I guess, growing up, my grandmother always took me grocery shopping with her at H Mart. Every trip, she let me pick out something new to try. Then when we moved to the Bay Area in junior high, I had a hard time making friends.”
“Really?” I peer at him. “I thought you were always popular.”
Daniel shrugs. “I wasn’t as outgoing back then. But at lunchtime, when everyone else was eating spaghetti and mushy green beans, I had these amazing meals that my grandmother packed for me, plus a ton of snacks. And when I offered to share, well, everyone wanted to be my friend after that.”
“So you bribed your peers into being your friends.”
“If it works, it works,” Daniel says, grinning. “Once I’d figured out that my lunches were the key, I asked my grandmother to teach me how to cook. And after a while, I just fell in love with it. There’s something so wonderful about getting to see the people you love eating food that you made, you know?”
“That’s pretty cool,” I say.
Damn, no wonder Daniel was so popular in high school. While I was busy reading Inuyasha and whatever other manga I could get my hands on at the local library, he was learning entire skill sets to win over his classmates.
I realize that despite our study date the other day, I never got around to asking him what he actually does for a living. We were too busy memorizing each other’s birthdays and other basic stats like that.
“So, is that what you do now? Something to do with food? You seem so passionate about it.”
“No, actually, I just finished up law school at Berkeley, and I’m a lawyer now.”
I give him a look.
“What?” he asks.
“You hated Mock Trial,” I say before I can stop myself.
He wrinkles his brow. “I did?”
“You never took the lead role,” I say. “You did the pretrial case senior year, presumably so you could leave practice after the opening argument.”
I pause, unsure if I should keep going.
“And?” Daniel prompts me. “I know you have at least one more data point, Slayer.”
“And you never beat me at it,” I say. “Which tells me you weren’t really trying.”
“Oh, I was trying,” Daniel says, his mouth quirking. “You were just better in that particular realm of competition.” Daniel meets my gaze, his voice lowering. “But I always gave it my all when you were involved.”
I feel myself blushing at that. From day one, from the moment I met Daniel, he was my rival and my nemesis. I wanted nothing more than to beat him, and that drive kept me going through high school. When I made Cindy quiz me during lunch or studied far too late into the night, it was because I was hell-bent on wiping that smug grin off his face and reveling in his defeat. I relished competing against him—and most of all, I relished winning.
Daniel had always played it cool. I’d assumed our battles hadn’t meant anything to him—that I was just an afterthought. But hearing this, I have to wonder if maybe I was wrong about that. Maybe I’d meant just as much to him as he did to me.
“You’re right, though,” Daniel says. “If I’m being honest, Mock Trial wasn’t my favorite.”
“So what made you go into law?” I ask.
“It just made sense,” Daniel says, shrugging. “Going into law was what my parents wanted for me. Both of my older siblings are lawyers, too. I didn’t want to disappoint my parents, so I took the path of least resistance.”
I nod, understanding the need for parental approval, even though my mom’s desire for me to pursue medicine wasn’t enough for me to do something I didn’t love. At the end of the day, I knew she’d support me choosing my path, so that’s what I did.
“What’s it like, being in a family of lawyers?” I ask.
“You have no idea,” he laments. “Every meal ends up being a cross-examination.” Then he laughs. “Not that it’s a bad thing. Debating is basically our way of showing we respect one another. And competing with one another is basically our love language.”
“So much about you makes so much more sense.” I’m starting to wonder if maybe, just maybe, Daniel and I have far more in common than I initially thought, when we hear a loud boom.
“What was that?” I ask, jumping to my feet. I look around for the source of the noise, my heart racing.
“Can’t be anything good.” Daniel is already up. “Come on, we should get back.”
Together, we make our way toward the villa. By now, the sun has set, and the light is fading quickly. The storm is starting to pick up again, and the wind whips the trees as we’re pelted by raindrops. The trek through the trees isn’t as easy as it was an hour ago, and my flimsy sandals snag on a root.
“Crap!” I nearly hit the ground, but Daniel catches my arm.
“I’ve got you,” he says. He takes my hand, intertwining our fingers, and doesn’t let go even when we make it back to the packed dirt path leading to the villa.
I’m wondering how I’m going to clean all the mud off my sandals when Daniel stops short, and I realize that we have a much bigger problem on our hands.
The villa is dark. The windows aren’t lit from within, and the pool we’ve been walking beside is an inky black, no longer glowing with the shimmering blue of the pool lights.
“Did the power go out again?” I wonder. I tug us forward, but Daniel drops my hand and starts jogging toward the side of the villa. I run after him as he follows the perimeter of the wall.
“There,” he says, stopping at last. He points at a huge metal block with pipes running along the side and a vent in the front. The metal is dented, and even in the rain, smoke is billowing out from it.
Daniel says, “The generator. That’s what that boom was. I think it blew out.”
There’s an acrid scent in the air. A hefty tree branch is stuck through the vent, as if it had speared the generator through. I prod the branch. It sparks, and I jump back. We look down at the ground, and something black oozes from the generator. In this light, it looks like blood, and I shiver in Daniel’s arms. He tightens them around me.
“Maybe it’s oil?” Daniel wonders. He nods at the branch. “I’m guessing the storm must’ve caused the branch to jam the generator, and it sprung a leak.”
We both look up, but the nearest tree is over twenty feet away.
“But the wind wasn’t that strong when we heard the generator go,” I say slowly. Lex’s warning echoes in my mind. First the fireworks and now this? Maybe this wasn’t a freak accident caused by the storm. Maybe this was intentional.
“Yeah, I don’t know,” Daniel says scanning the trees. “Let’s go inside and report it.”
We turn—and run straight into Leah.
“Shit!” Leah yelps. “You scared me.” She shines her flashlight on us. “What are you two doing out here? You should be inside!”
“We went out for a walk when the rain let up,” Daniel says. “You coming to check on the generator? I think it’s busted.”
“Damn it.” Leah goes to push her stringy, wet hair out of her face, but her face pinches in pain as soon as she lifts her arm. “Fuck,” she hisses.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
“It’s fine. I’m fine. I just slipped earlier. Must’ve strained a muscle when I caught myself.” She points her flashlight at the generator. “Well. That thing’s dead. It’s just one accident after another here.”
“When it rains, it pours,” Daniel quips.
“Save it for the cameras, Cho,” Leah snaps, but it’s half-hearted. She pulls out her phone and snaps a photo of the generator. “Come on, I don’t want you guys hanging around here.”
Leah strides away, and we hurry after her. As we near the front of Villa Paradiso, lightning strikes, a bolt of white in the night sky. In that split second, a flash of movement catches my eye—a streak of something blue and a shadow stark against the walkway for the briefest of moments. But then the darkness returns, and all I can see is the spindly outline of branches.
“Alice?” Daniel touches my arm.
“Did you see that? There’s someone else outside.” I say, squinting into the distance.
“Probably an animal,” Leah says. “Everyone’s inside, except you two.” At the villa, she holds the door open with her good arm. “At least there’s one bright spot in all this,” she says as she follows us in.
“What?” I ask.
“Our cameras are working just fine, so we can keep filming.”
With the power out, the inside of the villa is also pitch-black. Leah’s flashlight is the only light we have to guide us as we make our way through the halls. As we pass one of the tall bay windows, I see the line of trees surrounding the beach, and I’m reminded of the branch plunged into the generator. It could’ve been an accident, but I have a creeping feeling that something—or someone—happened to that generator.
EXCERPT FROM THE REAL TALK WITH EDEN AND MIN PODCAST
EDEN: Ba da da da daaa! You’re here with Eden—
MIN: And Min!
EDEN: And we’re breaking down all the reality TV drama for you today.
MIN: Okay, first we have got to talk about Dawn Tay’s Inferno.
EDEN: I absolutely love this show. It’s giving drama, it’s giving train wreck, it’s giving ethics violations. I’m obsessed.
MIN: You aren’t alone. I think people derive a certain amount of schadenfreude from watching couples fall apart, and Dawn Tay’s Inferno exploits the hell out of it. This show is killing it in the ratings game right now. Last night’s episode had more viewers than The Bachelorette did at its peak. Can you believe that?
EDEN: I can believe it. Between a once-in-a-lifetime freak tropical storm and the nonstop relationship drama, this has it all. Reality TV is my sport, and Dawn Tay’s Inferno is my Super Bowl. Plus, this is coming from Peter Dixon. If you’ve been paying attention in the reality TV world, Peter Dixon’s career is on fire.
MIN: True, but it could just be he has a killer casting department for finding the right people to really bring the drama.
EDEN: Of course he’s got a team to support him, but Peter Dixon just gets how to make good TV. Problematic, and often lawsuit-worthy, based on the last couple court cases to come his way, but good TV nonetheless. We have to respect the hustle. Combine that with an icon like Dawn Taylor and a bunch of hot couples rolling around on the beach and, well, it’s not going to disappoint.
MIN: To be honest, it’s a little contrived for me. Like, don’t you think that relationship swap was totally planned in advance? I’m not even sure this “storm” is real.
EDEN: The storm is so real. I’ve been tracking it—don’t laugh.
MIN: Who’s laughing? Not me.
EDEN: Uh-huh. Anyway, normally I’d agree with you on the swap being scripted, but I’ve been through enough breakups that I can sniff out genuine heartbreak. You can, like, see the exact moment when Alice’s heart shatters into a million pieces. Apparently, they’ve been together since college, which—woof.
MIN: Ugh. I felt so bad for her. Alice, throw the whole man away!
EDEN: Seriously. Chase has got that golden retriever himbo thing going for him, but Daniel is definitely an upgrade for Alice. I swear, whenever he looks at her, he’s got cartoon heart eyes.
MIN: Right? Finally, some good fucking food. I’m rooting for Alice and Daniel, and I hope Chase literally breaks a leg from a palm tree falling on him. Or maybe Dominic will step up and actually do something useful and throw Chase off a speedboat or something.
EDEN: Min!
MIN: I said what I said.